


Beyond Dark

by Ladycat



Series: Married [6]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Established Relationship, Fingerfucking, Nightmares, always a girl Rodney
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 06:19:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has about half a second to scramble over their extra-king-sized bed to get an arm around Meredith's middle, hauling her back onto the bed before she actually falls off.  She thrashes under him, sleep-fighting him away like he's the source of her nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond Dark

The bed is pretty wide, but John still comes awake in a flash, already reaching across the expanse. Meredith has always demanded her space while sleeping, a preference that has nothing to do with John's penchant for nightmares, but John's willing to let that be an excuse. He's a light enough sleeper when he needs to be.

When a simple reach doesn't work, John blinks sleep out of his eyes and actual sits up. Did she get up? That rock of moving weight didn't _feel_ like she'd gotten up, but...

Oh. Crap.

John has about half a second to scramble over their extra-king-sized bed to get an arm around Meredith's middle, hauling her back onto the bed before she actually falls off. She thrashes under him, sleep-fighting him away like he's the source of her nightmare. Frowning, worried, he gets her against his chest, ignoring the way she pummels, pushing her hair away from her sweaty face, saying, "Meredith! Mer, wake up. Mer, it's a dream! Wake up!"

The final bark of command finally gets through: her struggling slows, then stops, and she blinks her eyes open. "What are you _talking_ about?"

Meredith never sounds sleep-roughened when she wakes up. She _is_ , John knows, and will often not remember conversations. But she always sounds awake and completely annoyed.

Normally, it's worthy of a chuckle.

Right then, John shifts so he can cuddle her close, completely ignoring her grunt of frustration, stroking her hair and, yes, okay, he _is_ rocking her a little, but he can't help it. Meredith is such a contradiction to him, and she's always angriest when she's weakest, most helpless. It's set up a sort of conditioning _neither_ of them are really pleased with, but the result is pretty unchangeable -- the angrier she sounds, the more John wants to treat her like a damsel in distress, putting himself between whatever's bothering her, shielding her with his life.

Sometimes he thinks she thinks it's romantic.

Hushing lightly under his breath, John continues stroking her hair, thumbing under her eyes where sweat gathers and she _hates_ , subtly waiting until her flushed skin cools a little and her breathing slows. He's got an arm around her waist, her body pressed up against his, and he's _very_ careful not to look at the way his hand fits into the hollow above her hip -- it's a turn on, and right then, he doesn't want to be turned on. Just comforting.

He's not at all surprised when she goes limp after thirty seconds of this treatment. She may profess to hate it -- and in daylight hours she _does_ \-- but right now it's dark, and quiet, the room completely still, and for this one moment, she wants it.

"You okay?" he asks after a while.

"Anxiety," she confesses reluctantly, the word more bitter than the horse-pills the doctor makes her swallow. "It sucks."

Her hair is tacky with sweat but John doesn't mind. "What was it this time?"

"It doesn't matter, okay? It doesn't -- that's the _point_ of anxiety. The cause is irrelevant, or nonexistent. I just... panic."

John knows how much she hates being weak, or rather being _perceived_ as weak, since John doesn't have to do a damned thing to those who happen to think that incredibly erroneous label about his wife. But still, she hates it with antipathy that borders on phobia. So John stays exactly how he is, living and solid underneath her, letting her bury her face in his neck and remember how to breathe without hitching, to relax without the lingering worry of tensing right up again.

He's absently working out a knot on her shoulder when she humphs lightly into his collarbone. "You know what would make me relax?" she asks, a lilting note of teasing in her voice. Whens he lifts her head her eyes are bright with amusement that isn't really so amusing. "Sex."

Of _course_ it would. He's still laughing as he pushes her indignant frame back onto the bed, kissing her fast and fierce because she's right. It'll relax her into sleep and it'll give John a chance to do something he absolutely _loves_ \-- slide his fingers deep into his wife, over and over, utterly in love with how wet and slick she gets after the first touch, the way she arches up with a gasp that makes her breasts heave just right. He kisses them, can't help it, licking over her nipples through the silk of her nightgown, thumb rubbing steady and perfect right where she needs it most.

A few minutes in her gasps and moans resolve into words, but they come so slowly that it takes nearly thirty full seconds for John to string them into a coherent sentence. Then he laughs again. "I don't care," he says, rich with happiness, sucking kisses on her neck -- sleep and bitter fear, but it's fading under the clean taste of sex and want. "This is what I want to do."

"But I -- I can't -- _touch you_ \-- "

"Touch me later. Just let me, Mer, okay? Let me... " She arches, clenching hard around his fingers and he knows it'll be soon. He's not giving her any quarter, no where to go but the hard orgasm that'll help her sleep, make her give most sweetly, hot and wet all around his fingers, body completely open to him the way no one but him ever really gets to see.

She comes with a cry that stabs right to John's cock, but he doesn't get hard. He doesn't want to, not know, when he can gentle and cuddle his wife, easing her towards dreamless sleep with her head pillowed on his shoulder, her body sated and lax as she mutters imprecations. "I _like_ having sex with you," she whines.

"You just did, Mer."

"No, that was you being all... all _John_ and male and annoying." She's pouting, and she means it, but her eyes are already falling shut and they both know it's not something she _really_ objects to. Most of the time. "Tomorrow I'm gonna..."

"Do whatever you want, just like you always do." John presses a kiss to her forehead, then discreetly stretches an arm to the bed stand, freeing a tissue and wiping his fingers clean. Mer makes a dismayed noise and John chuckles, "No, you can't lick my fingers clean. You're asleep. Go to sleep."

It's only when her breathing completely evens that John lets himself shut his own eyes. He knows Mer'll wake him up with a blowjob out of 'punishment', knows that she'll find a hundred more ways to actually punish him throughout the day until she's satisfied that she reminded him just who's boss between them.

Snug under the weight of his wife, warm and content with the scent of sex hovering like a tease off on the distance, like the sea air he still sometimes swears he can smell, John smiles. He really can't wait.


End file.
